'Shame on the register to post wrong informations'

Re: Creationsists

"Why go to itunes and get a product that only works with a single manufacturer's equipment and I can't freely transfer from device to device when the MP3 from the file sharers has none of those restrictions?"

I have this hunch that it's been a while since you actually PAID for music. Whenever I buy music online, it comes down the pipe as a high-quality MP3 that I can do what I like with. Amazon sells them this way, so does Zune. I've got quite a few of them going back a few years. Movies tend to be DRM'd but then, really, is the inconvenience of buying something from a shop or waiting a day for delivery now the justification for not paying at all? If it is, then surely one could download it whilst waiting for the movie to arrive, but I'd lay money that's not what most downloaders are doing.

"For all the creative industries cries of innovation they are still wedded to old pricing models. When a CD cost £10, governed largely by the costs of manufacture, exces stock, and distribution (including fat margins along the way) you needed a certain level of profit per copy to preserve your magins. When the cost of distribution reduces to approximately nothing the prices didn't change too much - it was all additional margin"

I don't think so. Six years ago, I could easily pay over a tenner for a CD. Now an album purchased typically as a download costs me around £7.99. And in that time, the price of other things has actually risen. Food has gone up by about 20% over the last year or so alone. Inflation is the bringer of pain. And it's easier to pick and choose songs from an album too so even though they're a few pence more than if you buy them in bulk, I still end up paying less than I used to. Besides, what makes you an authority on how the costs of distribution compared to production of the content, etc. break-down? If I buy a song on CD or as a download, they're both going to end up as files on my hard drive. The download version is actually more convenient for me yet costs less. I see positives here, to be honest. I'm getting the same as I got before for less money and with less hassle. Anyone who complains the prices haven't gone down when they haven't gone up, needs to look into how prices of everything else have risen in the same time frame. I think you'll find that music and movies are competitive. Blu-rays have sunk down to being just a slight mark-up on DVD costs when they used to be double and I can easily find older DVDs for a fiver or less in HMV.

"Why hasn't the reverse happened? Why not encourage a gorge of consumption instead and charge 5-10p for that same album? Bundle them up - e.g. £5 per month for up to 50 albums, and people would be happy to pay for convenience."

Probably BECAUSE of piracy. The lower prices get, the fewer qualms people have about pirating them. Maybe that sounds counter-intuitive to you, but it's actually the case that if your product costs 5p, people think nothing of just downloading it free. Though I think you have an unrealistic idea of how low prices can go and be profitable. Take a small time band. If they're lucky, they might sell a thousand albums online (if they're lucky). For this, you would give them 5,000 - 10,000 *pence* by your figures. Let's pick the middle figure: you've said they've made £75 before taxes and hosting costs. That's slightly over an hour of time renting the recording studio down the road from me. Eek! There go the small time musicians. Lady Gaga might just squeeze out a living under your expectations of what is a fair price, but sucks to be a less world famous musician.

But this masks a different issue. You are setting yourself up as arbitrator of how much things should cost. You're saying to other people: your work is not worth what you think it is, it's worth how much I think it is. Do you think you're not? Well in that case, you should be looking for a system whereby people can work out how much they think something is worth as a group. Ah, wait. We have that - it's called the market. Charge more than people think it's worth, and people don't buy. Charge too little and the same people buy but would have given you more. Piracy is a way of opting out of negotiations and forcing the artist to sell at a price they have not agreed to. Again, sucks to be them.

"£60 each per year is far more attractive than three or four CDs per year picked up at Tesco."

I have that. Zune music pass. It's actually £7.50 per month and gets me an absolutely massive and growing selection of music that I can pull down onto any of the devices I own and play happily. There is DRM, but they've long since managed to make it all but invisible to me. So you've more or less got what you wanted there. It's a rental rather than a purchase, but if you want to purchase an album that you can play forever and ever and ever (as high quality MP3s without DRM), it's a bit more than a fiver.

Everything the pro-piracy people said they wanted in exchange to stop pirating, is now here. And to be fair, many people have stopped pirating and now buy. So that's good. It just leaves a few seeking ever more insane concessions in exchange for not taking people stuff for free. I'm of the opinion that such people just like taking things for free. :(

Re: noodled24

"I've tried not to use any metaphors this time since when I do, they cause your neurons to misfire ;) ;) ;)"

It was more their innaccuracy that was bothering me really.

"Avengers stuff - well maybe they were comic book geeks. Or maybe they had kids. Who cares, it was an example."

I care. You used it as an example of how it was an advert for the toys and implied the studio was double-dipping into people's pockets somehow. I pointed out that the example was flawed in many ways. If you make the argument: "this is true because look at X", and then someone points out X isn't true, a response from you of "it was an example, who cares?" kind of shoots down the entire argument unless you want to find another film where you think costs just be lower or nothing because there is an associated product range. In fact, you'd have to show that this was generally true. If the Barbie movie helps stimulate toy sales, that hardly provides a justification to pirate Chronicle or Corillanus. The entire line of argument is flawed in several ways. It's just nonsense really. If anyone wants to take the business model of "here's the content for free, now please buy associated merchandise" then they are absolutely free to do so. Copyright doesn't stop them. But for you personally to insist others must use your (frankly unworkable) business model, is inappropriate.

"Although granted in your eyes any child who doesn't have the available funds to view said content should be excluded from the fun."

And here, even though you've been persuaded to drop outlandish metaphors, you still can't resist making your arguments based on personalised emotive examples. We discuss piracy in the general and you create your literal poster child of a poor kid who is being excluded from fun by mean anti-piracy types. So what are you saying? Whenever parents couldn't afford something their child wanted, it's okay to grab it without paying? Or that all pirates are poor children disadvantaged and its their basic entitelment to a copy of any movie they want? Way to teach a child ethics and about working for something, btw.

Again, not only silly arguments, but ones now deliberately created to personify and persuade by creating victim imagery. Given that you began by writing a four paragraph rant against those making arguments by personifying and creating victim imagery for celebrities (which no-one here had actually done, amusingly), it's both ironic and hypocritical for you to use such tactics in support of your own viewpoint, is it not?

"CDs - Browse HMV. Or anywhere that sells CDs. They're overpriced. Consumers are only too aware that CDs have been over priced for years."

So if you make a product and want to sell copies at price X and a crowd of people come along and say: "X is too much, we're taking it for free", you'd be happy? You're a liar if you say you would be. And yet you think you should decide how much other people can sell something for. Because you know best! There will always be people who want things to be cheaper than they are. Right? Should these people be the ones that get to choose how much something is sold for? At that point, things would always be sold for £0.00. No? Okay, so perhaps it should be a group decision. We could use a system whereby, oh I don't know, people vote with their wallets. Too high, don't buy, prices come down. But they only sink to the level at which people are willing to pay. Hmmm. Isn't that what we have?

Unless of course people are forced to buy the product because it is an essential, like heating or food or water. Movies and books aren't essentials? Well then I guess voting with the wallets really does determine what the market will bear. So just because you think CDs are overpriced, doesn't mean your opinion is a justification for taking them for free.

"Creation and transfer of MP3s costs next to nothing. Albums and singles are just adverts for the live shows"

This is below stupid. "Creation" of MP3s costing nothing assumes the music appears from nowhere. How about you factor in the recording time, the years of study. I'll tell you what, if someone asked you to debug a device driver for them and you spent all day on it and then they said: "but the cost of you sitting at a keyboard all day was nothing, just some electricity, here's 5p", would you be happy? I wouldn't. So go ahead, find me an argument against that that isn't also an argument against a musician. Seriously, you think you can put the argument that "creation and distribution of MP3s is next to nothing" and that all the effort, skill and costs that went into making it just get lost in the detail?

It's a nonsense, dishonest argument to focus on the distribution medium and claim this is more important than the content itself. Your suggestion that "You can write, compose, record, and distribute a whole album from one laptop (if you wanted)" illustrates how disingenuous you are being. Certainly that is technically true. Does it have any relevance to 99.99% of the albums out there that weren't? No, of course it doesn't. Your assertion that "Albums and singles are just adverts for the live shows" is just your point of view. I buy far more music these days than I go to to hear at live shows. Who are you to say that this is how things must work and that all musicians must bow to your ideas of acceptable business models? If a group want to give away their music for free and make all their money from live shows, then copyright law doesn't stop them. If what you say were actually the case then the artists actually would be giving away their music. And yet they don't. So clearly they disagree with you. And that is their choice. And note how you have reflexively gone back to the music industry, when we were discussing movies. Is the Avengers just an ad for live performances? Oh wait, I forgot. You think it's just an ad for toys. Yes indeed, everyone is going to rush out and buy plastic figures where the real value lies! What the fuck? Do you not see that your entire idea of an advert having more value than the thing it is advertising is economically and logically insane? And yet you have asserted that this is the case. My Basement Jaxx album (yes, I'm showing my age), which has been played many times, has more value to me than actually seeing them perform (I mean, they're music is remix based. You think they're doing all that on stage with laptops? Well you probably do). And yet you seem to think that something more valuable is "just an advert" for something less valuable. I'm having flashbacks to Bill Hicks talking about Dinosaur Fossils, here: "God put them there to test us!" :D

More nonsense: "The amount people spend to create that content is down to them."

Yep. And they spend the money because they can sell it. Again, the twisted logic which attempts to avoid that it is other people's money that is being spent to create that content, through purchases, and an attempt to discuss only this idea you have of some Industry as if it wasn't the money of everyone who is willing to pay going in, because you think you sound more noble ripping off an evil profit-laden "Industry" than the shoppers who the money actually comes from and which pirates freeload off. Go ahead - try and make a case that the money the pirates freeload from isn't coming from the people buying products. That content producers are just inherently rich.

"The simple truth is that the majority of "pirates" are poor people. Who wouldn't rather go and see a film in 3d on the big screen. But many can't afford it. Constant marketing, and denial of "content". Of course people bend the rules."

I don't think there's anything about that "truth" that is simple. I live in a mix of demographics, but of the reasonably well-off people I know - programmers and technical people with jobs paying at or significantly above the national average, piracy is pretty common. And the amounts downloaded are huge. You suggest that it is someone too poor to go and see a 3D movie. The reality is that people download dozens of DVD rips. At what point does your sense of entitlement end? When you've said: "I am too poor to afford this £100 worth of DVDs, I'll just download them". £200? £1000? Someone who has grabbed thirty DVDs to watch is not making a case that it's socially unfair for them to not have been given those DVDs so they're entitled to take illegal copies. They're luxury goods. This is your final argument. One that presupposes a basic right to a copy of someone else's work. Your sense of entitlement is out of control.

Re: @h4rm0ny

DavCrav wrote: "How's your arse feel after that buttfucking your argument just received?"

Didn't notice. I think you need a bigger dick. Possibly also you should have read what I wrote in more detail. You seem to actually be supporting my argument. One of the things I wrote is that with physical media, it's hard for suppliers to accurately guess how many they will sell so they usually get it wrong. In fact, they always get it wrong because you *cannot* know how many people will buy it to the number. If you underestimate and think there is more demand, you end up doing a second run. If you don't think there is demand, then you don't do a second run. What this means is that logically you always reach one of two end games. You have no inventory left, and you've decided not to gamble on another run. Or you have an excess.

If you have an excess, then to shift it you discount. Particularly if you see that people these days aren't really buying CDs anymore. MP3s don't have to play that guessing game, so they don't get discounted. I note your examples are pretty old. What you're seeing is people discounting the physical media to recoup what they can from it because it isn't selling and unlike MP3s, the physical media costs are already sunk. And guess what. That's what I actually wrote in the post you replied to!

"Buttfucking!" My arse!

Re: @h4rm0ny cult of celebrity

PyLETS wrote: "Well, you're the one who's post started accusing the other side to this debate of religious irrationality. Sauce for the gander to respond in kind given the laughable character of the goose's quacking"

It doesn't work like that. If someone accuses you of doing something you are actually doing, that doesn't justify you accusing them of the same thing if they're not. I'm confident that what I wrote is rational argument. Your latest post is now talking about how the Bible teaches us not to idolise celebrities. (Again, is even worth pointing at this stage that you're the only one charging this strawman about hard done by celebrities? The rest of us are talking about businesses.)

PyLETS wrote: "My primary guide here comes from a more ancient source than the longer lasting laws still governing human relations which were derived from this. The Bible survived..."

This and the entire attached paragraph it comes from is so warped it would take a whole page to unpack all the false assumptions it makes and fallacies in it. But briefly, you made an attack on copyright law saying it's a relatively recent invention in human history (well, if you think several centuries is relatively recent). I pointed out that recentness doesn't make something invalid and gave several legal examples (e.g. against domestic abuse). You've responded by saying just because something is recent doesn't make it valid. Well yeah, the point is that if recentness isn't the determining factor then your attack about how copyright law is only a recent thing (by which you mean 400 years) is wrong from the start. You arguing that recentness is irrelevant, is arguing against yourself. Though you later on change your position and start appealing to authority of tradition and age once more when you start talking about what the Bible teaches us.

PyLETS wrote: "The Bible survived because people didn't need to contact and clear rights with dead authors' estates to authorise the copying of it. From your perspective you may dislike its survival but I don't. It informs us that the worship of idols is sense destroying and enslaving"

Again, you're back to your original strawman. And this is becoming one of Nicolas Cage burning proportions. You keep making these ranty attacks on people for idolising celebrities. But oddly enough, no-one here is. We're talking about how pirates are getting things for free off the willingness to pay of other people like ourselves, putting the financial burden on us. That's consistently been the point I made from my first post and the first thing I wrote was that piracy-apologists immeditely brush aside the fact that they are doing this and instead try to create an argument that assumes the Content Industry is some a priori thing that just exists because it sounds more noble to be ripping off a studio or "celebrities" than the people who the money actually comes from. And that's repeatedly what you are doing. Your issue with "celebrities" is some weird monomania that was raised as a subject by you and which others don't really care about. My original example was some small press publishers of role-playing games finding they could no longer make a profit because of piracy. What Kim Kardashian et al. have to do with that, only your mind will ever know. :D

And as to my dislike at the Bible's survival. No, I'm happy for all historical works to survive from the Bible to Mein Kampf. We as a culture must learn from our mistakes. More straw laid at my door. Though to be honest, having the Bible's moral authority waved at me as a counter-argument in a debate about copyright, just brings us back to your posts being high on rhetoric and low on actual reasoning

PyLETS wrote: "but in a DRM controlled and strict copyright-enforced future, the mass extinction of much important cultural work becomes inevitable"

Wow. I think that's the first actual argument you've made that isn't based on your own personal assumptions. I don't think it is true though. Your example is a comedy TV show from the 1950s where some episodes have been lost? I think it's fair to say that the 1950s precedes DRM substantially. Therefore DRM is not responsible for these episodes being lost. Further, your argument is only a rationalisation. It's not to do with what is actually the case. For example, all of the movies and music being shared on the Pirate Bay is, as far as I know, available DRM-free to buy. Technically DVD's and Blu-rays have a sort of content protection on them, but it's not the device specific sort of DRM that would be relevant to what you say, it's stuff that is universally unlockable should "human culture" be in danger of using it . You can't possibly argue that

(a) the movies and albums being shared on Pirate Bay are in danger of being lost because of DeCSS, et al.

(b) that modern digital technology and interest in long-term sales by the content producers is comparable to the BBC sticking an old can of celluloid in a basement somewhere (in an era when they often broadcast live without actually recording, which shows what priorities were attached to it)

(c) that you haven't just come up with this reason as a post-act justification and that you seriously think we should suspend copyright or alter law because of this.

Let's be absolutely clear on this: DRM is a response to copy-right infringement. If we ever do lose parts of our heritage because of DRM (which is highly unlikely), it will be the fault of the pirates that brought about DRM.

PyLETS wrote: "Also if you take a few minutes to read my post more carefully, then perhaps instead of flying off your handle into your singular personal orbit, you may spot that far from being "blind to the fact that it's OUR money that funds the content's production", this post is proposing a more cost effective way to achieve the funding of content (by prioritising newer art through shorter terms based on the assumption of directing a given public purchasing budget for newer work instead of for older work, the latter having already been appropriately remunerated."

There are two issues with this. First I am not convinced that "PyLETS" is the best person to determine how much should be paid for content. We have a system to work that out in which people buy it if they think it's worth the money and don't if they don't. There will always be those who think something still isn't cheap enough. Secondly, as I pointed out elsewhere, the most heavily traded files on the Pirate Bay are all the latest things being taken for free. This simple fact shows that this isn't about copyright terms. That is, again, just another post-fact justifaction you have sought.

PyLETS wrote: "Your argument claiming those who enjoy content without paying for it are parasites: "thus it is us that the pirates leach off" seems to me as far off the wall as the idea that someone whose bedroom window happens to be next to a cricket ground from which a match can be watched without payment is "leaching off" those who buy tickets"

It's undisputable that those taking content for free are leaching off those who pay for it. Unless you think movies, music, books, software all just magically appear without funding. And that's true however it "seems" to you. The cricket comparison? Yes, it's the same principle. But taking the same principle and putting it in a vastly different context in order to make that principle appear wrong, is rather poor argument. Someone watching cricket from their bedroom window *IS* leaching off those that buy tickets. Do you think that 'wins; you an argument? No-one cares about four or five people craning their necks to see the cricket without buying a ticket. Why? Because the harm is minimal and the product is different (leaning out of the window as opposed to having a seat in the grounds). Mass, organized flawless reproduction of digital content that makes a direct competitor to legally purchased content? Not really the same as a few people leaning out of their windows, is it? Similar principle in the same way that a kid punching another in the play-ground is not a crime but someone hitting you with a glass in a pub is. Principle exactly the same but do you want the person in the pub simply told off by a teacher; or the child in the playground convicted for GBH? No? Then congratulations, you're now capable of taking a more sophisticated view of principle application that simplistic reduction ad absurdem. Now try applying it to piracy.

I would write more, but that's all I have time for. People can work out for themselves whether they agree with your rants about celebrities, the Bible, translating piracy into grossly different analogies and other rhetorical tricks. I think your posts here have done more to highlight the double-standards and false assumptions of piracy apologists than I could ever have done myself. So thank you. ;)

When someone is reduced to putting things in a completely different context to

Re: @Titus

I like broccoli, both raw and cooked, so what exactly are you saying. Then again, I'm a bit of an iodine freek.

Re: out of interest 19:09

Again I ask, how am I stealing if I choose not to look at adds in a news paper?

I have eyes, and I can choose to use them. If I choose not to load up an add, it's the same choice.

How is that stealing? If they insist on a pay per view, they should be honest about this an put up a pay wall.

If they want an honour system, they should be honest about this too. I pay for the Humble Bundle etc, even though they are DRM free. So I don't steal.

I could decide my posts cost 1 million dollars for anyone who wishes to read them. If they refuse to pay, have they stolen from me?

Re: out of interest

Interesting what you say about CPU / bandwidth. Rich media are using unasked for CPU on my machine, and bandwidth out of what I pay for (I'll avoid net neutrality culs-de-sac here). So a quid pro quo is arguable on that aspect. Indeed if someone's machine is being used to contribute to running e.g. some massive calculation / simulation, the advertiser is effectively stealing from the academic / charitable organisation.

Re: The reasons why people steal digital media is...

@Intractable Potsherd

You're right about the law on theft being very mature (ie old & out-dated), wrong about it working well in the context of digital media. It worked fine when illegal copies of media were generally so poor that people were still willing to pay for legal copies. But now it's possible to download perfectly adequate copies of films in HD that are practically indistinguishable from the legal version. This should be classed as theft and become a criminal offence on a par with shoplifting.

Re: I think they understand

"If a product costs nothing to make and distribute then it effectively ceases to be a product and becomes an advert - effortless free publicity"

That only works if the thing you're advertising is worth more than the advert itself. It's non-sensical to give away something of siginficant value to advertise something that is not. E.g. how exactly does someone getting an exact digital reproduction of a movie from somewhere I'm not getting paid for it help me when the product I'm trying to sell is an exact digital reproduction. Your example is a Brazillian author who found sales of a physical print book increasing in a market where he had no presence (Russia) because of file distribution. You miss so many things in this. Firstly, copyright law doesn't stop anyone from doing this at all. If you really are touting this as a better business model, fine, you are free to distribute your work this way. So is Paulo Cohelo. So is anyone else. If it's that much better as a business model you don't *need* any changes to copyright law, just go ahead of legally distribute your books. What you are arguing for is that other people should have to use one particular business model, i.e. a reduction in choice. Secondly, this example is from over a decade ago when people still wanted physical media - he was happy because physical sales went up. That's not going to be as true today when eBooks are becoming popular and it's going to be even less true in the future as digital versions of books become the preferred option. And it isn't true today when music, movies and software are pretty much preferred in digital format. Once someone has the iso of a DVD, they gain nothing more buy actually going out and buying the DVD. The products are the same, unlike a print book and a bad scan over a decade ago being read on a desktop or 1997 laptop which actually are different experiences. Also what's true of an author who is unknown in a country is not going to be true of a current popular movie, etc.

Your whole car analogy remains only that - an analogy in which you arbitrarily state that selling services and maintenance will recoup cost of investment and make more profit than actually selling the cars. In your analogy that is true, *because it is your analogy and you can say that's how it is*. It doesn't mean that the economic model actually works for any given product. Yet you want to force people to use that model without their consent. If I write a novel and anyone who wants it takes it for free, then I'm not going to make a lot of money on maintenance or offering support and I'm not interested in advertising *myself*. The only thing I'm interested in is advertising the novel. So I'm hardly going to want to give away the novel as an advertisment for itself am I? Because I am not a Brazillian author trying to break into a market where I am unknown and capitalise on print sales vs. ereader technology from the 1990s. And you do realize that without copyright, *anyone* can sell the physical copies of the books, movies, software, etc. without giving the creators a penny for it?